Ref. C&D - decided!

Until I read 'Five-year timeout' in Ref C questioned (Rocky Mountain News 9/28/05), I was undecided about the referendum. As a Conservative, I was inclined to oppose Ref. C, but questioned my "gut" in light of the Governor's support for the issue. For me, the key issue has been - what will be the tax consequences of C in the "out" years? Opponents produced Col. Springs economist Paul Prentice's report, according to which (Ref. C passage) would result in a $31 BILLION tax increase over the next 25 years. Prentice added, "We can argue what the data is and (what) the implications are..." to which Governor Owens' spokesman and other C&D advocates replied; "baloney", "Respectable economists don't forecast out 30 years", "full of manure" as well as providing a detailed analysis of The Jetsons cartoon series from the 60s.
Prentice himself said that his findings could be debated, but C&D proponents chose to insult and belittle the author instead of addressing the tax issues his study raised. Much like those who oppose President Bush's policies by calling him "dumb", these C&D supporters apparently can't make their case factually so they resort to name-calling and condescension. Its hard to respect people who won't engage their opposition in the "arena of ideas" and its hard to support their propositions while this $31 BILLION tax study goes unrefuted.
At least now, opposing Referendums C&D won't be hard at all.

Dinner with the relatives

As the third consecutive week of media Bush-bashing, over FEMA’s “slow” response to poor, black Katrina victims drew to a close, I prepared for a direct personal encounter with my Bush-hating relatives. Actually, it was my wife who was trying to prepare me for an evening out with her extended family. By preparing, I mean she practically begged me to “take the high ground”, “be the bigger person”, to “not sink to their level” if and when they pronounced the president as “stupid”, “a liar” or no different than Hitler.

Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not the guys who deliberately make these derisive comments; primarily it’s the women who are emboldened to lash out loud at every aspect of this president’s policies, politics and persona whenever they get together. And to make sure that their complete distain for all things republican are known, they converse at volumes meant to give even those seated at the next table over an ear-full. They gather strength from each other, hatred feeding off their collective rage and woe to any husband who dares inject any call for respect or reason.

Anticipating the dynamics of such a gathering is one thing, but actually being subjected to this type of wanton, in-your-face disrespect is something very different. Planning to “be cool” is a lot more difficult than “staying cool” when subjected to this kind of snide, elitist condescension. So, when the waiter made his way over, I did the only thing I thought could make the evening even more painful than it had already become - I ordered the hottest, spiciest entrée on the menu hoping that by inflicting physical pain on myself, I would become incapable of responding to their taunts. After all, I had always ascribed to the theory that if one part of your body hurts, by purposefully injuring a different body part, the original pain would be eclipsed. At best, this was an interesting theory; at worst it was junk science, but I digress.

As I ate my blackened Mahi and Mexican rice I began to feel a kind of kinship with my fellow Cajun countrymen. Much like eating bitter herbs during the Passover Sedar, in order to feel a connection to the harsh lives lived by my Jewish ancestors when they were enslaved in Egypt, I felt a kind of intestinal connection to the thousands of Gulf Coast refugees, now forced to seek a better life in distant lands - sort of the “Big Easy meets the Big Queasy.” Meanwhile, my bleeding-heart relatives all ordered the Rocky Mountain salmon with wild rice. Delicious, for sure, but just like their righteous indignation over the “inept federal response” and Bush’s “antipathy toward the poor” in New Orleans, these meals would be soon forgotten in favor of their next course du jour – dessert.

Before I could say “Ray Nagin, where’s my bus” our waiter appeared over my shoulder, pouring life-saving water into my empty glass. And just like those waves of Coast Guard choppers delivering food and water to stranded hurricane survivors, this dedicated servant of the public kept my glass filled throughout our entire meal and surely saved me from any spice-inflicted harm. And yes, that mean piece of Mahi and that righteous rice kicked my bland Minnesota pallet so far down the bayou that the ridicules rantings of a whole raft of relatives went uncontested that night, much to the relief of my loving wife.

Good night and give me back my Zantac!

Falling Polls - Cocky Liberals

At his 9/13/05 news conference, the President said, "To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility.” Nonetheless, critics are putting words in his mouth when they say, “that Bush himself accepts blame for the debacle." One would think, that their willingness to mischaracterize Bush’s own words belies an eagerness to use human suffering, to advance a political agenda, regardless of the truth. Are they suggesting that Bush was responsible for 100,000 residents of New Orleans ignoring the mandatory evacuation order? Was it Bush’s job to personally round-up 2,000 bus drivers to man the (subsequently) flooded school buses and drive those New Orleaners to safety? Perhaps they would have preferred for the President to have over-ridden the Constitutional authority of the Louisiana Governor and put (her) State Nat’l. Guard units under his command without her approval? Under a Liberal, nut-job Administration, would they have pre-positioned relief personnel and material in the direct path of the hurricane, only to have them destroyed along with a geographical area the size of Great Britain?

Admittedly, FEMA Director, Michael Brown, Sec. Chertoff and even Bush himself, did not distinguish themselves in their initial public statements. They appeared distracted and less than inspirational, but beyond looking bad on TV, I have yet to hear anyone identify any specific flaw in the federal response that was not caused by the indecisiveness of Governor Blanco (d-LA). No one is criticizing the similar efforts of FEMA in Mississippi or Florida or New York for that matter.

In the meanwhile, by the time Bush and FEMA get through the relief and recovery effort for hurricane Rita, no one besides the committed Bush-haters will even care about the “kangaroo court” the MSM conducted in the first few days after Katrina. Poor dependant democrats from New Orleans will find new lives and new dignity elsewhere around Red State America and the political landscape in Louisiana will be forever changed.

I’ve noticed that as Bush’s poll numbers have declined, the wacko-left has become more brazen and self-confident. Such declines are not unusual in a President’s second term, especially when (that) president does not shy away from confronting important issues. Without any political opponent to compare to Bush, his performance is measured against “perfection”. So, compared to G-d, its reasonable to assume the President may come out on the short end. The minute you stack him up against a Kerry or Hillary or any other human being, I’ll bet he instantly climbs back in the polls. It would be a big mistake to assume that just because someone may not “approve of the way the President is handling his job or some particular issue”, that they automatically reject him as the far-left does. Expressing dissatisfaction with Bush’s job-performance does not, in any way, shape or form mean that person has abandoned this President, the Republican party or the Conservative cause and it certainly does not mean that (they) would now align themselves with his political opponents.

Let's all take a deep breath

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan called President Bush a "lying b__tard," "filth spewer," "evil maniac," "f__king hypocrite," "fuehrer" and the world's "biggest terrorist" who is committing "blatant genocide" and "waging a nuclear war" in Iraq. More recently, she even blamed President Bush for causing the hurricane and has accused the US military of “occupying New Orleans.”
It now appears that Bush and everybody else associated with Katrina's federal rescue effort have little to apologize for, save some poorly prepared public statements. In fact, as chronicled by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's Jack Kelly, the so-called villainous, incompetent feds actually performed quite well this time - in comparison with past efforts. "The federal response here was faster than [in Hurricane] Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne," a National Guardsman involved in the Katrina rescue effort told Kelly. In fact, the federal government pretty much met its standard timelines, but the volume of support provided during the [first] 72-96 hour[s] was unprecedented. After Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, National Guard troops didn't arrive on the scene (in strength) for five days and FEMA's response to Hurricane Floyd in 1999 - with the agency then under the vaunted leadership of President Clinton's appointee James Lee Witt - was fraught with month-long delays. However, after Katrina's floodwaters hit, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and, yes, FEMA - was on the scene (in force) in only three days.
In just the first week after New Orleans' levees had been breached; more than 32,000 people had been rescued by Coast Guard helicopters, shelter, food and medical care had been provided to more than 180,000 evacuees and the Army Corps of Engineers had all but repaired the breaches and had begun pumping water out of New Orleans. Unnoted by even Administration supporters, is the fact that these extraordinary first week's efforts took place while roving bands of Katrina "victims" were shooting at the rescuers. Considering the complete collapse of city and state rescue efforts - where even the most basic stipulations of New Orleans' evacuation plan were ignored - the federal operation was a model of efficiency.
At the Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center, we saw the failure of 40 years of the Great Society. No sooner had Katrina passed by and the 17th Street levee broke than hundreds of young men who should have taken charge in helping the aged, the sick and the women with babies to safety took to the streets to shoot, loot and rape. The New Orleans police, their numbers cut by deserters who left their posts to look after their families, engaged in running gun battles all day long to stay alive and protect people. It was the character and conduct of its people that made the New Orleans disaster unique.
The real disaster of Katrina was that society broke down. An entire community could not cope. Liberalism, the idea that good intentions and government programs can build a Great Society, was exposed as a fraud. After the trillions of tax dollars for welfare, food stamps, public housing, job training and education that had been poured out since 1965, poverty remained pandemic and when the police vanished, the community disappeared and men took to the streets and preyed on women and the weak. Stranded for days in a pool of fetid water, few took the initiative and almost everyone waited for the government to come save them.
The area affected by the storm was greater in area than the entire United Kingdom and everyone in America, particularly Democrats, professed shock that everything could not be brought back to normal in a matter of days. The President has now set forth a conservative agenda to rebuild the area that includes enterprise zones and job training in the hope of overcoming "generational" poverty caused by racism. The "generational" poverty in New Orleans was actually caused by the welfare system created by Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and his "war on poverty." Prior to Katrina, about half the population of New Orleans was living on government handouts that were controlled by a black mayor, a black city council and enforced by a black police chief. The entire structure of New Orleans was one of corruption and vote buying, perpetuated by using the welfare system.
Mr. Bush believes that simply giving more money directly to poor Blacks will not help them to restore home ownership to levels, as high as when Lyndon Johnson decided to help "them poor black folks." It was Lyndon Johnson's racism, and his belief that blacks were not capable of making a living for themselves, that created a welfare system which has discouraged marriage and home ownership in the black community. The best fix for New Orleans is the enterprise zones and minority job creation programs that the President has proposed; however, Senators Kennedy and Clinton will, once again, try to turn Katrina recovery into welfare programs that do more harm than good to the black community.

Thanks to NewsMax.com

Ameinu = Gestapo

Jamie Levin, Exec. Dir., Ameinu has ignored the issues I raised and has attempted to make me into the bad guy for having the temerity to criticize his organization’s Press Release. The question on the table remains, why does Ameinu seek to further punish the Gaza protesters? Of all the Jewish organizations around, are there any other(s), publicly calling for jailing their fellow Jews? Such a public position from an organization that advocates, “turning the other cheek” (on decades of Palestinian-sanctioned violence against Israelis) and negotiating more territorial giveaways is, indeed, hypocritical if not sinister. From my point of view, Levin’s organization calling for “heads on a platter” smacks of hatred toward his fellow Jews, ones who just happen to have acted out of religious principles.

I have never expressed any support for the tactics that the settlers employed. In fact, I think those holdouts and professional protesters were wrong, but since no one died or was seriously injured, I’m happy to let this difficult chapter in Israel’s history end, without further animosity. Both during and after the Disengagement, all I heard from every Israeli official, civilian and politician was, “now that it’s done, we want to heal the rift between Israelis of all persuasions.” Tell me how, Ameinu, advocating jailing Jews accomplishes that universally stated goal? Does Levin expect those religious Jews will be repeating these “crimes” anytime soon? When exactly is the next Withdrawal planned anyhow? Is there any chance that these same protesters will be back in action anytime before the year 2050?

How is it that Levin’s liberal organization can’t wait to forgive PLO terrorists, but has such a giant hard-on for Jewish protestors? Absent any answer from Ameinu, I stand by my supposition that, Leftist organizations (like his) that temporarily allied themselves with Likud, are now casting themselves as law-and-order extremists (i.e. Gestapo, KGB, Taliban or Republican Guard) in order to prove to their natural, liberal constituencies that they were only using Conservatives to affect Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. Secular Israelis have no regard for Religious Jews and I believe that Ameinu is no different. Now that Gaza is behind the fence, he’s exposed the true nature of his leftist organization and, what do you know, it’s People of Faith, not Palestinians whom he wishes to punish. What in the world does that say about Levin and his ilk?

I have postulated that Levin’s public call to jail Jews equates Ameinu to a police organization (i.e. Gestapo, KGB, etc.). I’ve asked Jamie Levin to explain Ameinu’s unwillingness to forgive religious protesters and have put forward my theory as to why, a peace-loving group like his, harbors such hatred toward his recent allies. He could try to defend his position (not mine – his), he could explain why these few religious Jews, should be held to the letter of the law, while PLO terrorist killers are forgiven or he could simply retract that statement and apologize.

In the meanwhile, I won’t be loosing any sleep worrying about future protestors’ possible civil disobedience, because Israel won’t be giving back any more land in my lifetime. Gaza was not the first step of anything. Rather, it was a one-time, unilateral strategic move that won’t happen again until long after the upcoming Palestinian Civil War and only then if the gangs are defeated.

If my assertion, about Ameinu’s motive for advocating jailing religious protesters, was a “red herring”, then why did Jamie Levin remove this particular Press Release from his 8/31/05 email blast, immediately after I contacted him? Perhaps I’m not inventing anything, rather unmasking an inherent prejudice in his organization’s leadership and I can understand where that might be a little “unsettling” indeed. If Ameinu seeks to become the new PC police, jailing Orthodox Jews while embracing the PLO, then it must explain how my Gestapo analogy is inaccurate.

Bye Bye Brown Redux

Alarming predictions of as many as 10,000 dead in New Orleans may have been greatly exaggerated, with authorities saying Friday that the first street-by-street sweep of the swamped city revealed far fewer corpses than feared. And, although health officials were preparing for outbreaks of deadly diseases in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the federal Centers for Disease Control said Thursday that no epidemics had materialized so far.

Despite this and other good news, Michael Brown was becoming such a lightning rod for the hate-Bush crowd, I'm sure that the more impressionable, apolitical people were starting to lose faith in him and that was the dynamic that precipitated (his) reassignment. But once again, Bush outsmarted his haters, by removing Brown and putting him back in Washington, he got to put in....A MILITARY MAN! Damn, the left must be gnawing their tongues out, but what the heck, they got their pound of flesh. If the Dems have any decency left and quit using the bloated corpses of New Orleans minorities as their pulpits, they would stop carping and pitch in with the rest of American who is trying to help those devastated by a NATURAL DISASTER.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has been critical of the Bush administration's response to the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but, according to the mayor of New Orleans, her indecision when President Bush offered help delayed rescue efforts and cost lives. Both Mrs. Blanco and Mayor Nagin, who left New Orleans for the safety of Baton Rouge, before the storm hit, should both share significant blame for death and suffering. Compared to the New York Governor and mayor after the 9/11 attacks, Kathleen Blanco and Ray Nagin weren't exactly Pataki and Guiliani and they'll have to answer for their own actions when this crisis abates.

Furthermore, by reassigning Brown to Washington, President Bush can now demand that EVERYONE take the same decisive action. When the multiple layers of ineptitude are exposed in Louisiana's Democratic leadership, everyone involved will be held accountable. The usual suspects will moan and stammer about FEMA’s ineptness or racial profiling, but in the end, even Brown will look competent compared to the local Louisiana leaders. I suspect KKKarl Rove is using the "old sweater" strategy against the Dems, pull out one small thread and watch them slowly unravel. He really is an Evil genius.

(special thanks to libswurstnitemare™)

Back off Brown!

I suspect that sooner or later the Media will discover that New Orleans did have a written emergency plan to cover the evacuation of the poor, but that the Mayor of New Orleans ignored it, and allowed hundreds of evacuation buses to be ruined by the flood. City leaders had at least two full days to use these buses to evacuate the poor, exactly as their own emergency management plan called for, but they failed to act.

The Red Cross was reportedly ready to deliver food, water and other supplies to flood-ravaged refugees who were sweltering inside New Orleans' Superdome last week - but the relief was blocked by bureaucrats who worked for Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. Furthermore, can you imagine how it would have been perceived if the President of the United States, of one party, had pre-emptively taken from the female governor, of another party, the command and control of her forces?

When Michael Brown faced Senate confirmation hearings in 2002 as FEMA's deputy director, there was wide bipartisan support, and the then-Democratic controlled Senate approved Brown on a voice vote. Since his confirmation, Under Secretary Brown has led Homeland Security’s response to more than 164 presidentially declared disasters and emergencies, including the 2003 Columbia Shuttle disaster and the California wildfires in 2003. In 2004, Mr. Brown led FEMA’s thousands of dedicated disaster workers during the most active hurricane season in over 100 years, as FEMA delivered aid more quickly and more efficiently than ever before. Previously, Brown served as FEMA's Deputy Director and that agency's General Counsel. Shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Brown served on the President's Consequence Management Principal's Committee, which acted as the White House's policy coordination group for the federal domestic response to the attacks.

If, as the President’s critics contend, that Brown’s resume prior to his service in FEMA was inadequate, then why didn’t Congress or the Media protest his appointment or his record over the past 164 disasters, prior to New Orleans? Let’s also remember that in Mississippi where the devastation has been equally as bad, there’s been no similar calls for (any) FEMA heads-on-a-platter. With regard to problems in Louisiana, it smells like politics to me. As to the polls, I’ll be content to wait for the various investigations to tell everyone who really was to blame.